Sacred Places

Michael Berman, UK

Michael Berman BA, MPhil, PhD, works as a teacher and a writer. Publications include A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom for Crown House, and The Nature of Shamanism and the Shamanic Story for Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Shamanic Journeys through Daghestan and Shamanic Journeys through the Caucasus are both due to be published in paperback by O-Books in 2009. A resource book for teachers on storytelling, In a Faraway Land, will be coming out in 2010, as will On Business & For Pleasure - a self-study workbook for students of Business English. Michael has been involved in teaching and teacher training for over thirty years, has given presentations at Conferences in more than twenty countries, and hopes to have the opportunity to visit many more yet. For more information please visit www.Thestoryteller.org.uk. E-mail: michaelberman@blueyonder.co.uk

It has been proposed that “Celtic tradition and beliefs are expressed spiritually through land” (Pennick, 1996, p.13). Of course, exactly the same applies to other traditions too – Native American or Aboriginal Australian, for example. Nigel Pennick goes on to add that

the landscape is filled with places where spirit is present. Every time we experience it, this presence encourages us to make an imaginative act that personifies the place to us. Then we perceive its qualities personally. This is the animi loci, the place-soul. When this is acknowledged and honoured, ensouled sacred places come into being (ibid. p.13).

For shamanic practitioners, for example, a place such as the entrance to a cave, the hollow trunk of a tree, or the top of a mountain may become the starting point for “journeying” – entering a trance state to access other realities. Another point Pennick makes is that

“Sacred places come into being when humans recognize and acknowledge the. They are ensouled locations where we can experience elevated consciousness, receive religious inspiration and accept healing” (ibid. p.14).

If we take this to be the case, then the importance of a place frequently has less to do with it physical landscape and more to do with the personal meanings we attach to it. This explains how seemingly totally unsuitable places are sometimes chosen by shamanic initiates as the starting point for their journeys into non-ordinary reality. What may seem inappropriate to one person, though, could well be ideal for someone else. That is why whatever place the initiate may choose should be accepted by the teacher as long as it serves the required purpose and feels right to the person embarking on a journey for the first time.

For a language learner, a classroom where recognition or success by those whom he or she respects was achieved could well become such a place, and by visualising this location it is possible to access the same positive state of mind that originally led to success. Of course the initial recognition or success might well have been achieved somewhere else, in a real life setting where the learner was able to communicate effectively, such as in a restaurant or at an airport, in which case that place could be used as the setting for a visualisation.

Scripts that can be adapted for such a guided visualisation can be found in the book I wrote with David Brown – The Power of Metaphor. And to find out more about shamanism, Shamanic Journeys through Daghestan might be worth adding to your Amazon website wish list or basket.

Bibliography

Berman, M. (2000) The Power of Metaphor, Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House.

Berman, M. (2009) Shamanic Journeys through Daghestan, Hampshire: O-Books.

Pennick, N. (1996) Celtic Sacred Landscapes, London: Thames & Hudson.

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.